Of Big Bad Wolves and Prince Charmings
by Madame BonBons
Summary: "I'm sorry darling, but real life doesn't happen this way."


**AN: This is horribly cheesy and not exactly amazing, but I'd love to know what you think of it. Seamus/Lavender are slowly becoming one of my OTP's.**

_**Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer...**_

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><p><em>Once in awhile,<br>Right in the middle of an ordinary life,  
>Love gives us a fairy tale.<br>~ Anonymous ~_

"_Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."  
>~ G.K. Chesterton<em>

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><p>When you are little, your mother's Muggleborn best friend reads you Muggle fairytales and you decide that you will grow up to have a happily-ever-after, just like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. You want Prince Charming to come into your life and save you from the wicked witch and the big bad wolf.<p>

Your mother's best friend tells you that one day you will be saved by a knight in shining armour and a big bad wolf will be defeated and you will live happily-ever after, in a beautiful house surrounded by flowers and lots of babies.

You think that that is why you fall for Ron Weasley. You're 16 and all you want is to be loved, and saved, and to have a romance like Cinderella did. You delude yourself into thinking that when he stood up for you against Blaise Zabini in 5th year that he was being your knight in shining armour.

Your relationship isn't really a relationship. It is snogging in front of Hermione and turning yourself into one of those girlfriends that you and Parvati always despised. You start thinking that your knight just needs to defeat the wicked witch (_in your eyes Hermione_) and then you will get your happily-ever-after. I'm sorry darling, but real life doesn't happen this way.

The knight does not show up for the battle, the wicked witch is actually not that wicked, and you are not a special princess. In the story of Ron and Hermione (_doesn't it just roll off the tongue?),_ you are the big bad wolf and you don't even know it.

In the end, it is Seamus Finnigan who tells you that you are preventing Ron and Hermione from being together and you cry for a whole day and night over the realisation that you are the thing that you wanted to be rescued from when you were a little girl of six listening to the captivating stories on the lap of a woman with red hair.

The break up is a showdown that could rival that of Prince Phillip and the Wicked Witch in Sleeping Beauty and it gives you a little pleasure that you can fulfil your role of the evil, crazy person in the situation, as you couldn't fulfil the princess.

You disappear into the night and no one really pays you any attention for the rest of the year, except your few girl friends. And for a while it doesn't matter, because you are like the dwarves with Snow White, and you have fun times together.

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><p>And then the next year starts, and you are Rapunzel locked in a tower, ever fearful of the Carrows and other Death Eaters. The girls of the DA, (you, Parvati, Padma, Hannah, Susan, Ginny, Luna, Morag, Megan, Mandy, Lisa and Demelza), become the Twelve Dancing princesses, and each night you all hide in the Room of Requirement, waiting fearfully until the wounded come and get patched up after the detentions and punishments. You silently return to your dormitories before dawn and get as much sleep as you can, falling asleep during Transfiguration and Divination regularly.<p>

Finally, you feel like you are good, like you might only now deserve a happily-ever-after that Hannah has with Neville and Padma has with Terry. A mature young man of the name Seamus Finnigan, the same one who took you to the Yule Ball and made you feel like a princess and the same one who figuratively splashed water on your face about the Ron situation, starts to catch your eye and you think that if anyone is going to come riding up and slay the dragon for you, it will be him.

And so you help heal him when he stands up for you all. You are friends and you worry that one day his cheek is going to be the death of him. He thinks it will be your beauty. It's complicated, and some nights you sleep in the same hammock and sometimes you hold hands, but you're not together and it's not a fairytale romance when there's a war going on around you.

And then it is the Battle, and you see him walking out the door of the Room of Requirement and all you can do is run up to him, turn him around and kiss him smack on the lips. You know that it isn't what Cinderella would have done, but if this year has taught you anything it is that fairytales may only exist in the Muggle world.

"Don't you dare die, Finnigan, or I'll kill you." You tell him, and then he is gone and you are standing in a corridor by yourself watching people walk to their deaths.

In the end you are Little Red Rapunzel, cornered high on a balcony by a big bad wolf and your world comes crashing down. There is no one to save you, except Hermione Granger, and luckily she gets the horrible wolf off you just as it's fangs are coming down to bite you.

You lie on the ground and you see people rushing round and no one is coming for you.

And finally he arrives. He's torn up, covered in blood but he picks you up as carefully as he can, like you are one of Professor Trelawney's tea cups and must not be broken, and moves you to the side. His eyes are all silver looking, and he holds you tightly.

"Jesus, I told you that your beauty would get you in trouble." He weakly chuckles, but you can tell that his heart is not in it.

You think that he may be crying as something wet lands in your hair and trickles down your cheek, mixing with a wound and causing you to realise that your injuries are burning and you cannot feel your legs. You try to ignore the panic spreading through your brain.

The only thing you can bring yourself to whisper is a realisation.

"You're my Prince Charming."

He smiles and kisses you softly before replying.

"I'm just a bloke waiting for his princess to say yes."

And you smile and croak "Yes."

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><p>And it doesn't matter that you won't heal for a long time, or that you will no longer be beautiful. You have the beginning of your own happily-ever-after and a Prince Charming who will slay the dragon for you many times over. And that is enough.<p> 


End file.
